Democrats Party in Charlotte’s Republican-Backed Public Projects

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Democrats are holding their
political convention in the urban landscape of Charlotte, North
Carolina, which is studded with more than $800 million worth of
public projects that wouldn’t exist without local Republicans.

The Time Warner Cable Arena, the Lynx light-rail line, the
Nascar Hall of Fame and an expansion of the Charlotte Convention
Center were approved by bipartisan majorities under Republican
Mayor Pat McCrory, who held the office from 1995 to 2009.

“That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” McCrory said in a
phone interview yesterday as he traveled east from Charlotte to
Lumberton as part of his campaign for North Carolina governor.
“I’m not hearing my name mentioned, but that’s OK.”

McCrory, 55, spent his time as mayor urging public
investment in infrastructure, especially in the urban core
locals call uptown Charlotte that is the center of convention
activity. Companies with headquarters in the city, including
Bank of America Corp. and Duke Energy Corp., supported the
city’s efforts, which occurred as the population grew by 48
percent to more than 711,000 during McCrory’s tenure, according
to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.

‘All These Buildings’

“Over the years, I think bipartisanship has helped build
all these buildings,” said David Howard, a Democrat on the
Charlotte City Council. “They couldn’t have gotten it done
without the votes and the support of the Democrats.”

McCrory’s willingness to spend public money on major
construction projects runs counter to the rhetoric from national
Republicans, who say government needs to be smaller and spend
less money.

“The national political scene has changed dramatically,
which is why McCrory is campaigning far to the right of how he
governed in Charlotte,” said Mary Newsom, associate director
for urban and regional affairs at the UNC Charlotte Urban
Institute. “He’s having to campaign in a way that gives him
credibility with the extreme right wing of the Republican
Party.”

Democrats and Republicans should work together to make
progress on infrastructure, said McCrory, who lost his first bid
for governor in 2008 as President Barack Obama won North
Carolina by about 14,000 votes.

“We ignore one of our best presidents ever, and that’s
Eisenhower,” he said, referring to Dwight Eisenhower’s creation
of the interstate highway system. “Obama had a chance to be a
Roosevelt-type figure with infrastructure, but he failed
miserably.”

Convention Center

The uptown landscape that lured the Democratic convention
didn’t exist in 2001. That year, in a non-binding referendum,
voters rejected a set of public projects including an arena.

The city, led by McCrory, built the arena anyway. In that
period, it finished construction of the light-rail line and
began planning the Nascar Hall of Fame, which hasn’t met
attendance projections.

The bipartisan, bank-backed ethic that governed Charlotte
is changing as the city becomes more Democratic and national
politics seep in, Newsom said.

The city council, which had been more evenly divided, now
has nine Democrats and two Republicans. In 2009, after McCrory
decided not to seek an eighth two-year term, Anthony Foxx became
the city’s first Democratic mayor since 1987. In 2011 he landed
the Democratic convention.

For his part, McCrory says he doesn’t mind that his role in
making the Democratic National Convention possible isn’t being
acknowledged from the podium.

Light-Rail Line

The rail line, which runs almost 10 miles south from uptown
to Interstate 485, was derisively known as “The McCrory Line”
in the period before it opened in jeers that came mostly from
fellow Republicans.

“Now that it’s working, it’s called the Blue Line, and
that’s fine with me,” he said.

The convention, he adds, gives him a trump card when
Democrats challenge his record in the gubernatorial campaign.

“If I did such a bad job,” McCrory said, “why did you
bring the convention here?”